The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s new guidelines to offer mammography from age 40 will save many lives.
In May 1991, I sat in a law firm conference room in Washington, DC, listening to a pitch from a small group of women who had the idea to launch a political advocacy movement around breast cancer. One of those women was Dr. Susan Love. The person next to me nudged me with her elbow and whispered, “She is famous. She wrote this unbelievable book.”
Susan Love, breast oncologist, founder of the breast cancer advocacy movement, and chief visionary officer of the Dr. Susan Love Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, died July 2.
NCI has awarded LoxiGen Inc. a three-year Fast-track Small Business Technology Transfer grant to develop a drug that targets treatment-resistant triple-negative breast cancer.
FDA accepted the New Drug Application for capivasertib in combination with Faslodex (fulvestrant) for the treatment of adult patients with hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer following recurrence or progression on or after an endocrine-based regimen.
An observational cohort study out of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center demonstrates that race and ethnicity affect a woman’s 21-gene recurrence score, a tool used to determine risk of recurrence and distant metastasis in patients with early-stage, hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.
A study involving UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers found when ribociclib, a targeted therapy drug, is added to hormone therapy there are significant invasive disease-free survival benefits in patients with early hormone-receptor (HR) positive/HER2 negative breast cancer.
In the phase II PHERGain study, 95.4% of patients who followed a chemotherapy de-escalation strategy using PHERGain’s adaptive design remained cancer-free after three years of follow-up, and around 30% of patients responded to a fully chemotherapy-free regimen as part of their treatment for HER2- positive breast cancer.
Moving away from recommendations dating back to 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now states that women should start biennial screening for breast cancer at age 40—instead of 50—a change that experts say is based on new, inclusive science.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s latest draft recommendation on breast cancer screening is based in part on data on racial disparities in breast cancer mortality.
